


we are blasphemers (until we are the gods)

by girlsarewolves



Series: exchanges [54]
Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy (2017), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ancient Egypt, Blasphemy, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, fusing canon depictions of the gods with ancient Egyptian religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28923747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: “Find the forgotten tomb, and you will have your salvation,” the voice promised her as it faded. “Find her - us - and we will reward you and those who have your favor. All others will fall. The living god will be no match to our power, dear one. To yours, or your lover’s. You will be living gods instead. Safe and free and together, in this life and the next.”“I will do as you bid,” she promised in a hushed tone. “I will not fail.”-(or, Anck-su-namun and Imhotep flee to take their chances with Ahmanet and Set.)
Relationships: Ahmanet/Anck Su Namun, Ahmanet/Anck Su Namun/Imhotep, Anck Su Namun/Imhotep
Series: exchanges [54]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1269893
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	we are blasphemers (until we are the gods)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raving_Rabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raving_Rabbit/gifts).



* * *

The golden rays of Ra shone down over the desert, unfamiliar and endless land stretching out all around. The heat was not a comfort but a bane, rendering the band of weary travelers parched and brittle, like a crumbling scroll of papyrus. Unforgiving and cruel, perhaps the sun god knew of the blasphemy that these wayward souls were searching for.

Anck-su-namun was well aware that her lover’s followers viewed her with wary suspicion even on a good day. Fortunately for her, they were willing to follow their high priest’s command, no matter how heretical it might seem. And so she led herself, her lover, and his loyal priests on a long, arduous path of treason.

_It is only treason if we fail_ , a voice whispered to her. It was a voice made of smoke and shadow, and it promised riches or ruin. The voice brushed over her skin like a breeze, coiling around her like a lover’s embrace.

_Only if we fail,_ Anck-su-namun repeated in her mind. Failure was not an option then.

\---

  
  


The voice had first spoken to her in the darkened halls of Set’s temple. It rose and curled in the air on the sweet scent of the incense offerings. Both masculine and feminine, as though it was more than one whispering to her at the altar of her master’s namesake.

It spoke of a chance. A promise of retribution and power. In its words was blasphemy, but Anck-su-namun had blasphemed the gods on her tongue and in her heart for years. An ever expanding list of holy names that had failed her, until she had come to Set’s hallowed grounds even though it flirted with a treason that did falter her steps.

Imhotep was the high priest of Osiris. Would he hold this adultery against her? The ambassador of the resurrected one had only held respect and sympathy and love for her, never betrayal. Would it be something she could withstand if he did?

Pain was nothing new to her, nor contempt or possession; greedy, hungry eyes on her. Uncaring hands all over her. An unwanted invasion of her body was her lot in life. If she could withstand that, she could withstand the burning sting of hurting Imhotep if it meant there was even a chance at freedom before - _without_ \- death.

So her faltering feet still carried her to the graven image of the chaos god waiting in that darkened temple. Offered fragrances were cloyingly sweet, stifling almost, and that voice came to her - and she listened. Fervently, with devotion; it felt like worship. 

Anck-su-namun had thought herself far beyond the ability to worship anything by now.

“Find the forgotten tomb, and you will have your salvation,” the voice promised her as it faded. “Find her - _us_ \- and we will reward you and those who have your favor. All others will fall. The living god will be no match to our power, dear one. To yours, or your lover’s. You will be living gods instead. Safe and free and together, in this life and the next.”

“I will do as you bid,” she promised in a hushed tone. “I will not fail.”

  
  


\---

  
  


When she had come to Imhotep, under the cover of a moonless night, and told him of a mystery revealed to her by none other than the enemy of his own god, she had feared deep in her heart that he would shun her. Turn her away and swear off this forbidden treason between their souls and their bodies. Scorn her for her foolishness, question every delirious word she was convinced she had heard in that temple’s halls.

It was after he had listened and promised her he would follow her to the ends of the Earth to find a way for them to be free that she had confessed her lack of faith. She knew he was truly a believer - a high priest with sincere piety in his heart. After all, it was that sincerity that had won him favor with Seti in the first place. It was why his priests were loyal to him and him above others - their devotion to Imhotep mirrored his own devotion to Osiris. How could she not entertain a little bit of doubt?

His hands were warm and worn smooth against her cheeks when he cradled her face. Imhotep looked at her as if she were holy, and in that moment she thought perhaps she had risen above even Osiris.

“I could never hold your fear against you, my beloved.” His lips were a feather-light pressure on her forehead, the kiss chaste and pure. “But know this - for you, I would commit a thousand blasphemies.”

It had taken all of Anck-su-namun’s willpower not to give into the temptation to stay with him through the night. In the solace of his sleeping quarters within the temple, where no one would dare stray and discover them. Her hands hovered near his face, wanting to touch be afraid to leave behind the smears of gold on his skin. “Would that I could touch you freely,” she whispered there in the sacred sanctuary of the dark.

“Then touch me. I will clean away the traces before any others see me. And my own priests paint themselves in golden shine as well, do they not?” His lips were near hers now, so close, and that temptation was thick in his voice, his already deep and melodic voice lower, huskier with the same want that Anck-su-namun felt coiling in her gut.

“If I touch you, I will give in to more...but the wardens he has given me for maids will come to check on me soon. To ensure I do only what he allows.” Bitterness soured the desire that had started to warm her body - but in that moment, she had need of it. Cradling that bitterness gave her the strength to pull away. “We will plan soon, together.”

Imhotep nodded, desire and anger warring in his gaze. It was the sorrow that won that pierced into Anck-su-namun’s heart, drawing more love into her veins. “So it shall be.”

  
  


\---

  
  


The nights leading up to their departure were full of dreams - visions of the one they would be journeying to free. A woman standing alone in unfamiliar sands that stretched out in all directions as far as the eye could see. Always out of reach, the shape of her blurred by the heat. She called to Anck-su-namun. Her voice was soft as fine-spun linen, though that voice of shadow echoed her in Anck-su-namun’s ears.

“Come to me,” she pleaded. “Release me.”

Something twisted in Anck-su-namun’s gut at the sound of her voice. At her calls. The familiarity of those words, of all the anguish and yearning behind them. Despite what little was known of this woman whom Set sought the release of, Anck-su-namun felt her ka respond to these visions. 

How could she not? Did she not crave her own release with every rise and fall of Ra?

In all their stolen moments of planning and taking what little they could give to one another, Anck-su-namun told her lover of these visions, of the woman they would be placing their fates at the feet of. “She is of the same soul and desire as us,” Anck-su-namun stated with full conviction. “She is our answer. As my doubts in you have blown away in the wind, so too have any reservations held towards this mission.”

“Where you go, I will follow,” Imhotep promised. It was not faith in Set or this mysterious woman, erased from their histories, but faith in Anck-su-namun. 

It was then she knew. She had indeed usurped Osiris in her lover’s heart.

  
  


\---

  
  


It took days upon days upon days - until time was lost to them, and all they knew was when Ra was in the sky and when he was not - and crossing through foreign land before they found the place where the Medjai from centuries ago had brought this woman. How far they had traveled, how long it had taken them, were concerns for after it was over. 

_We are here, Princess Ahmanet. We have not failed yet. We will not fail now._

The voice of shadow and smoke had whispered the name in brief moments before and after dreaming. Princess Ahmanet, who was to be Pharaoh, who was meant to be the living god, until a male heir was born long after promises and preparations were made. These were the things that Set told her, in those moments when lucidity waned.

Imhotep had never heard the name, never learned of this princess who was displaced. “Those in power tell the histories,” he had said. “Distrust much of what you know of the past. Only life and death and the gods are certainties.”

Before entering the temple of Set, Anck-su-namun would have doubted the certainty of deities. Now, though, she was truly a believer. Of course it would only be as a heretic. She would expect nothing less of herself.

  
  


\---

  
  


Finding their way into the antechamber took time and effort, and a near rebellion of Imhotep’s priests. 

The men viewed her with distrust and wariness, a few with open contempt. They adored their High Priest, they adored their god Osiris, and to those two only were the men loyal. Not to Pharaoh - and not to Anck-su-namun. Perhaps they noticed the way she spoke quietly to nothing, or their piety perceived the blasphemy and treason she was ready to commit and drag them and their High Priest into.

Much like the Princess Nefertiri, they saw her as a temptress who sought only power for herself. They reviled her attempts to defy her fate, the danger it put Imhotep in.

_How dare I want power and freedom. Think of me what you will._

It took time, but Imhotep convinced them to follow through, to go deep into the sand until they found what was buried deep within the earth. He promised them that it was his will - not Anck-su-namun’s, _not Set’s_ \- that brought them to this forsaken place. A truly masterful speaker, Imhotep used the natural comforting timbre of his voice well with his intellect. It was no wonder he had risen to the rank of High Priest, or that he had earned such devotion from his fellow priests.

There were casualties of course. Sacrifices. 

Great power will always require sacrifices, she had been told when she pleaded against her body being stripped and adorned with paint to mark her as Seti’s and give away any forbidden touch on her skin. A concubine to the living god, destined to become the queen wife, she was told. The greatest status a woman could achieve in this life. If her body was the sacrifice, surely it was worth it.

If these men were the sacrifice, surely the new future that awaited her and her lover was worth it.

The rest of the men believed in Imhotep, just as he believed in her. So onward they went. And when they reached the antechamber, lowered down into its darkness, and saw all the signs of a tomb bearing curses, still they pushed on at his command. When they saw the mercury dripping down and trickling into a pool where what - who - they were searching for was trapped, still they pressed on and obeyed his words.

_She is awaiting you,_ the voice whispered as the pulleys were cut and the sarcophagus emerged. _She is grateful. We are grateful._

“I am Anck-su-namun,” she whispered back. Her eyes remained on the sarcophagus, entranced. She heard the woman calling out, begging them for release, calling them her beloveds. Anck-su-namun smiled. “I do not fail.”

  
  


\---

  
  


They had journeyed to Hamunaptra first. Imhotep and a few of his closest priests had descended into the depths to retrieve the obsidian Book of the Dead, the sacred text, chiseled with secret rituals that were to never be used without the express blessings of the gods. From a time before their history began, when the Egyptian gods were young and their people children lost in the desert. Imhotep retrieved the book sacred to him and his priests and all those were worshipped the gods of the dead and the underworld and the next life that awaited them, and his priests had followed dutifully without question.

Now, as they reluctantly opened the sarcophagus, and their High Priest readied the holy text, their faith in him wavered. The fear and uncertainty was in their eyes now, if not yet leaving their tongues.

Anck-su-namun was not surprised. The heresy about to be committed could no longer be ignored. All signs of this tomb indicated that Osiris had abandoned the being trapped within, that Anubis guarded against their escape. Whoever was bound within the sarcophagus was meant to remain here - trapped between life and death, barred even from the underworld and the judgment.

_Men always seek to trap us, do they not, Princess?_

_Always,_ a voice - _her_ voice - replied. _But together, we will change history._

Anck-su-namun looked to Imhotep to find him staring with awe at the sarcophagus, and knew Ahmanet was speaking to him too. Here in this tomb, with her freed from the mercury pit that trapped every part of her being, her influence was stronger, farther reaching. Joy, fear, and hope all writhed and twisted inside of Anck-su-namun, and she clutched at her lover’s robes as he held up the Book.

For a moment, as his men finally pried open the sarcophagus to expose the corpse within, Imhotep’s eyes found hers. “We do this for ourselves and each other. Our love is eternal. And so shall be our debt to her.” He leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “I meant those words. For you, I will commit a thousand blasphemies.”

_It will not be blasphemy when we are the gods,_ her voice soothed them. The inhuman voice of Set echoed underneath hers.

Anck-su-namun smiled up at her beloved. “Let us begin.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic! I'm very sorry I didn't work Ahmanet in more - she's a much trickier character for me, though I have an idea for more that, if you are okay with it, I'd love to try to write as a follow up or epilogue sometime. I really focused on what you said about loving Ancient Egypt and tried to really put emphasis on that setting.


End file.
